


Green Glass Door

by fourshoesfrank



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Gen, Riddles, Word Games, roland is dyslexic and has speech apraxia. my fic my rules, takes place between books 4 and 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27396391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: literally just the ka-tet playing "Green Glass Door" while they walk on the path of the Beam
Relationships: Eddie Dean & Roland Deschain, Eddie Dean/Susannah Dean, Jake Chambers & Eddie Dean & Susannah Dean & Roland Deschain & Oy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Green Glass Door

**Author's Note:**

> i miss summer camp now :(( enjoy!

That glass building had been out of sight for four days, but Eddie couldn't get the image of it sitting on that hill out of his head. It was so _shiny,_ all that glass twinkling in the sunlight like a mountain of chandelier beads. Glass beads. Green glass. _Green glass, green like grass, take a shit and wipe my ass._ _Green glass, kiss my ass, take a shit and wipe with grass..._

  
"Green glass door," Eddie muttered to himself. He glanced around after he said this, checking to see if anyone else had heard him, but nobody looked up. Pine needles whispered under his feet and beneath his wife's wheelchair as they walked southeast, along the path of the Beam. A few feet ahead of the two of them were Jake and Oy, and behind them Roland trudged along, looking a little lost in his thoughts. 

  
Eddie was about to embark on a journey through his own thoughts, in search of the meaning of the phrase "the green glass door." He knew he'd heard it somewhere before, maybe at school, maybe a TV show, maybe just in passing on the street someplace. School seemed the most likely answer, since Eddie knew that the words were part of some kind of game, something to do with spelling things out. _Can I go through the Green Glass Door? I dunno, what's your name?_

  
Henry couldn't go through the Green Glass Door, but Eddie could. Henry had been real pissed at that until he heard that Phil couldn't go through the Green Glass Door either; neither could Graham or Ryan or Brandon or any of the guys he'd been hanging around at the time. 

  
Eddie's lunch table had been comprised of three other boys named Aaron, Lloyd, and Skippy, and all four of them were able to go through. The real kicker was the fact that Skippy couldn't go through if he used his real name, which was Grover. That had been the key to solving the puzzle, at least for Eddie. 

  
Eddie looked around again. _Susannah_ could go through the Green Glass Door, but Roland and Jake couldn't. _Oy_ couldn't go through the Green Glass Door, but a _billy-bumbler_ could.

Roland had almost caught up to the group again, and Jake seemed to be lagging a little; Eddie lifted his head and called them back over to himself and Susannah. They came, although Jake waited for Oy to finish sniffing a bush before he fell back. Roland closed the last few yards between them with ease, even though he'd claimed that morning that his hip felt a bit stiff. 

  
"What is it, Eddie?" Jake asked. "Is something wrong?"

  
Eddie grinned and shook his head. "Nah, everything's great," he said. "Just wondered if you guys'd be up for a riddle." Roland's head jerked sharply up at the word 'riddle' and Eddie felt a pang of regret, sure that he was about to get told to get lost and read the room. Roland didn't say anything like that, though. That was more a Henry Dean thing than a Roland Deschain thing. 

  
"I would hear this riddle," the gunslinger said, with his head held up in the exact same position he'd jerked it into. Eddie waited for the other two (three, since Oy echoed Jake's hum of agreement) to say they were game before he started. 

  
"Alright," Eddie began. He paused, trying to remember exactly how the game had been set up all those years ago during school lunch. "So, do any of you guys know about the Green Glass Door?" he asked. They all shook their heads. Roland asked if this was a poor attempt to make light of the massive green palace that the man in black had placed in their path, but Eddie assured him that all this bullshit had been rattling around in his brain long before he'd ever put on those shiny red beatle-boots, the ones that Roland called beetle-bootles. 

  
"Anyway, so there's this Green Glass Door," Eddie repeated, "and only certain things can go through it. Books can go through, but paper can't. A puzzle can go through, but a jigsaw can't. And so on and so on. Go on, ask me if something else can go through," he said, inviting the other three to try their luck at the riddle. Susannah spoke up first. 

  
"Can a person go through?" 

  
Eddie shook his head. "A person can't go through the Green Glass Door."

  
Jake was next. "Can a bumbler go through the Green Glass Door?" 

  
"A _bumbler_ can't go through," Eddie answered, "but a _billy-bumbler_ can."

  
Eddie could practically see the steam coming out of Jake's ears from pushing his thinking engine so hard. He almost fell down laughing when he looked over at Roland and saw the exact same expression on his long face, like a kid stuck on a math test. 

  
Eddie's face must've given his amusement away, because Roland turned his face to where nobody could see it and asked, "Can _I_ go through this Green Grass Goor?" He didn't even try to correct his mispronunciation, he was so deep into the riddle already. 

  
"Hm," Eddie said in reply, buying himself a second to spell out Roland's name. "Nah, bud, you can't. Sorry."

  
Roland nodded once. Now Eddie could see his cogs turning as well, albeit a bit more slowly than Jake's. Susannah still seemed to be pondering the answer he'd given her when she'd asked the first question, but she didn't seem quite as stumped as the other two. 

"You said a person can't go through," Jake began, "but could a train? Could Blaine go through?"

  
Eddie shook his head. "Blaine can't," he answered. "But a railroad crossing could."

  
He heard Roland sigh heavily on his left, and saw Jake's expression deflate as the boy muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _What the fuck._ Even Susannah's shoulders slumped for a moment while she tried to fit this new information into her understanding of the riddle. 

  
Surprisingly, it was Roland who spoke up next. "Can the door go through itself?" he asked. This time, Eddie felt himself begin to beam with excitement. Maybe old Roland the Riddler would crack this one after all. He nodded.

  
"The Green Glass Door can go through the Green Glass Door, yeah," he answered. Roland had to be on the right track, he just _had_ to; he'd never ask a question like that just to see what would happen. He definitely had some kind of idea pinging around in that tough old skull of his. 

  
Maybe not, though. Maybe Roland just didn't want to look stupid in front of the rest of them. Eddie thought about it, and realized that it was pretty unlikely that the guy who could barely read would be the one to crack a riddle based on orthography. Spelling, to the lingually challenged such as their dinh. Eddie had a feeling that 'orthography' would become something like 'worth-the-graf-ee' in Rolandspeak. 

  
Susannah asked if a wheelchair could go through the Green Glass Door and Eddie told her yes, it could. Jake asked if a horse could go through the Green Glass Door and Eddie told him so sorry, bud, but it can't. Jake barely paused for a minute before he fired off another question, asking if a riddle could go through the Green Glass Door. 

  
Eddie's beaming grin returned to his face. The kid was gonna get it soon, he thought, probably within the next ten minutes or so. "Yeah," he said, "a riddle'll go through the Green Glass Door just fine."

  
Jake started to ask another one, but Susannah interrupted him on accident with "Can a bug go through?"

  
_Either she's trying something out,_ Eddie mused, _or she's totally off the mark._ He didn't ask. He just said no, a bug couldn't make it through the door. 

  
The corners of Susannah's mount began to lift up as she asked her final question: "Can a beetle go through th Green Glass Door, honey?"

  
_She's got it._ "Hell yeah, you could stuff a whole fuckin' army of beetles through there," Eddie replied. Suze's tentative smile broadened into a triumphant grin as she pumped her fist in the air, drawing Jake and Roland's attention to herself. 

  
"It's the letters! Any word with double letters can go through the Green, Glass, Door," she said. "I've got it, don't I?"

  
"You got it!" Eddie crowed as he leaned forward to plant a sloppy wet congratulatory kiss on her cheek. Jake stretched out his arm to high-five her, and Oy barked happily along in the background. 

  
Roland still had that stuck-on-a-test look on his face. Eddie waved a hand at him, trying to get the gunslinger's attention once again. Roland's eyes tracked the movement, but his mind was obviously focused on other things. When Eddie waved a second time, Roland barely acknowledged him. 

  
"Hey, earth to Roland," he said, giving one last wave of his hand for good measure. "Riddle's over, pal."

  
"For you, maybe."

  
Eddie did a double take (out of the corner of his eye, he saw Susannah do the same) upon hearing the frustration in the gunslinger's voice. The image of a kid stuck on a test wouldn't leave Eddie's mind; he'd heard that same tone of voice come from his own throat in response to a well-meaning teacher's question many times. The only thing worse than that sense of impending failure was the halfhearted way people tried to help you out when it started to show on your face. 

  
"Hey, man, you okay?" Eddie asked. Roland nodded curtly, but he sighed and seemed to deflate when Susannah and Jake turned to check on him too. 

  
"It's our alphabet," Jake said. Eddie couldn't tell if the kid was explaining the situation to Eddie or asking for confirmation from Roland, but he thought it may have been a little of both. 

  
Of course. The goddamn alphabet. He'd already thought of that, already realized that a man who could hardly read English certainly wouldn't be a spelling bee champ; Eddie hadn't been expecting anything big from him. He said as much. 

  
"Aye," Roland said, "but I still feel like a lad falling behind in his lessons." If he had a sense of humor, he might have smiled after saying this, but the gunslinger's expression didn't change in the slightest. He still looked frustrated and confused. 

  
"Ain't any lessons to fall behind in, sugar," Susannah said firmly. "This isn't school."

  
"Yeah, it's not like we're getting graded on these riddles or anything," Jake added, smiling at the gunslinger. 

  
Roland shook his head. "I should have been able to pick up a few of these words from your minds, at least," he argued. He turned to look at Eddie. "After all, it's no fun telling a riddle if one of the contestants' hearts isn't in the game. I cry your pardon, Eddie."

  
"Nah, don't cry my anything," Eddie insisted. "It wasn't a fair game, simple as that. I cry your pardon, Roland."

  
"No, 'twas entirely—"

  
"Fellas!" Susannah's voice broke in before they could really get invested in this strange little argument. She probably didn't want to hear it going on just behind her head for the next fuck-knows-how-many miles. She was in no mood to find out just how long they could drag this out. Time was a face on the water, and space was time's butt-ugly mutie twin.

  
Eddie burst out laughing. "Alright, fair enough," he said, holding out his left hand for Roland to shake. He did so, and clearly intended to keep walking along the path of the Beam in silence afterwards, but Eddie had other plans.

  
"So, if words like 'green' and 'glass' don't have double letters in your... spelling system, what does?" he asked the gunslinger. 

  
Roland shrugged. "I was never very trig with letters, Eddie," he said. "You'd do better to learn the Great ones from Vannay, or even Cort in a pinch."

  
"I wanna learn from you, though. Dunno if you've noticed, but I kinda _have_ to learn from you," Eddie pointed out with a grin. Roland nodded. There was no amusement in his long face. 

  
"If I tell you of the Great Letters, will you teach me a bit of your New York writing?"

  
"Hell yeah! Welcome to the Eddie Dean Center for Remedial Literacy, my friend! Sit down, grab a chair! Classes start whenever the fuck we want em to, and the classroom ends up wherever the hell we do. Rated best in the whole damn world, we are."

  
"Quit it, Eddie," Suze scolded, but Eddie could hear the smile in her voice. She twisted her head around to give him a Look, but the moment their eyes met, she couldn't contain her laughter any longer. Odetta Holmes had gone to college, and while Susannah was grateful for everything she'd learned, she didn't think the experience would be enjoyable to her as she was now. As Susannah. 

  
Roland waited for her and Eddie's laughter to subside before he began to speak. First, he called Jake back over to the three of them, for the boy had begun to pull ahead of the group a little. Second, he asked if Jake had any interest in learning of the Great Letters and the High Speech. Jake had a great deal of interest, of course, so he stayed as Roland began to teach. 

  
"We start with the alphabet. The first letter, Ah, looks much like your A, though they're not identical twins..."

**Author's Note:**

> speech apraxia buddies can we all agree that roland probably is one of us. dyslexia buddies i actually am probably hyperlexic but *fingers crossed* hope i did alright here. would love to get a comment/kudos!


End file.
